Even the redemptive plan of God fructifies only through the voluntary and autonomous movement of the creature towards redemption. There is beauty and reality in this kind of spiritual progress, though it contains hazards and hardships. Externally imposed perfection is bondage rather than freedom. Therefore the meditation that can bring about liberation must be of the nature of love. The Upaniṣadic doctrine of grace, according to Rāmānuja, calls for this interpretation. Meditation of the nature of loving contemplation is Bhakti. There is also a further element in Bhakti. It is not rightly described as love. It must be called adoration. The devotee must hold himself as living, moving and having his being for the sake of the object of his devotion. It is worshipful love, it is object- centred and not subject-centred attachment. It is love for the sake of the beloved and in service of the beloved. The enjoyment of the devotee is consequent upon and is in proportion to this spirit of self-abnegation to the Deity.

The forty-seventh verse (Chapter 2) defines the fundamental nature of Karma-yoga, the pathway of liberating action.
Its first affirmation is that a person seeking spiritual freedom must take upon himself the duty to act and only to act. Secondly he should refrain for ever from concerning himself with the ‘fruits’ of the actions. Rāmānuja’s explanation of this two-sided injunction, imposing the exclusive obligation to act and the absolute prohibition of interest in fruits, is that action prompted by desire for fruits binds the agent and action for its own sake, as an end in itself, not prompted by desire for its fruits and dedicated to God in the spirit of worship, emancipates the agent. The third element insisted upon is that while doing the action one must cultivate the feeling and the attitude, that he, the doer, is not the cause of the action and its fruits. This self-effacement in relation to the responsibility for executing the action and producing the effects receives its proper interpretation and justification later on. The fourth point put forward as essential is that one should not fall a prey to the temptation of inaction; he should not entertain or practise love for refraining or withdrawing from action.
The positive element is the utter moral necessity for action and the three others are negative in character, being detachment from concern for the fruits, renunciation of the egoistic sense of being the cause of the action and its fruits and conquest over possible disinclination to engage in action.

In a philosophically informed life, the spiritually self-conscious individual understands the fact of freedom, understands it as derived and maintained by God, realizes how circumscribed its operation is in the actual course of ordinary life and how it has been surrendered, by the very exercise of freedom, to the domination of the non-self, sees the folly and delusion of arrogant self-assertion in this state of bondage, and seeks by an act of deliberate choice to put himself under the exalting and unconditional subordination to God. It is then that he fully becomes what he has it in him to become. By thus humbling himself to the utmost, he achieves complete emancipation.

Contemplation of this dual nature of Divine creativity, this immanence in the world-process and transcendence of it, says the Gītā, enables one to escape the fetters that Karma forges. In other words action does not bind the doer of it, if he bears clearly in his consciousness the nature of God actively engaged but not involved in the world-process. Rāmānuja interprets the statement to mean that this contemplation removes all the possible obstacles that one may encounter in one’s own nature against taking up Karma-yoga. The hindrances to Karma-yoga are removed by the meditation on the unique nature of God’s cosmic activity. It is thus that the ancient travellers on the path of Karma-yoga started their journey and Arjuna is exhorted to adopt this well-established ancient method.

Now the question is: What is it that he has understood, which understanding confers such eminence on him? What is non-action in action and what again is action in non-action? Rāmānuja understands that the point to be seen about Karma and Akarma and the seeing of which is so highly valued is that while a man is engaged in action he must bear within himself a clear understanding of the real nature of the self. If that awareness of the nature of the self is kept up in and through action, the action becomes a form or embodiment of knowledge itself. If that awareness becomes an integral factor in action, then that knowledge is nothing but a form or aspect of action itself. In short, this is a process of spiritualizing action and of concretizing knowledge. Knowledge and action can each be looked upon as the substance of which the other is the form. This intimate fusion of the two is what is propounded in the verse under discussion.

It is the unenlightened that imagine that the two ways differ in their goals, Karma- yoga leading only to Jñāna-yoga, while Jñāna-yoga is the single means for attaining the vision of the self. In reality both the ways have the vision of the self as their aim and fulfilment. Therefore by adopting either, one attains the goal of the other also. The wise ones see that what is realizable through Jñāna is realizable through Karma also. As the goal is the same, the wise recognize the two ways as equal alternatives. But the point of difference between the two lies in this: Jñāna-yoga is impossible of achievement without Karma-yoga; and the contemplative Karma-yogin after achieving Karma- yoga easily attains the goal of self-realization within a short duration. The mere Jñāna-yogin achieves Jñāna- yoga itself with great difficulty and consequently requires a long duration to reach the goal of self-realization, through it. The man of the path of action, being engaged in good works dedicated to God, acquires purity of mind. As he does not turn away from activity to which he has been all along accustomed like the Jñāna-yogin but only redirects and sublimates his activity, control of the mind becomes easy for him. Sense- control also becomes easy for him in consequence.

The Yogin perceives inwardly his own self and the other individual selves as transcending matter and as characterised by the same essential attribute of knowledge. He ceases to see in himself and others the contingent differentiations brought about by embodiment in physical organisms. The essential spiritual nature is discerned by him and that nature is perfectly of the same status and constitution in all selves. Hence he is a man of “equal vision”.

Two fundamental entities constitute the whole of the universe. They are matter and spirit. Neither is unreal and neither is derived from the other. They are called two kinds of Prakṛti, root-principles. Between them spirit, called here the Jīva, forms the higher Prakṛti and the material principle is the lower. The spiritual principle is higher because it is the commanding factor in the situation and to it the physical reality owes its sustenance. These are propositions stated without much elaboration, for the main purpose of introducing them is not to defend or describe them, but to determine their final metaphysical status. These two original elements of reality belong to God and they constitute His two-fold Prakṛti, His two-fold tools or powers, with which He works in His cosmic manifestation. It is this assertion of their belonging to God that constitutes the central affirmation here. All creation proceeds from these basic factors, and those factors, in their turn, proceed from Him. At the periodic reabsorption of the worlds creation relapses into them and thus it relapses into God. Thus the entire universe comes from and goes back to God and constitutes His, in an eminent sense.

The bountifulness of God is so great that the creation of opportunities by the finite soul for the exercise of that divine virtue is hailed as itself an act of generosity. While this is the general appreciation of devotees, the devotee who has knowledge and is impelled by that to devotion receives the highest praise. He seeks God as his supreme goal, for without Him, he finds himself incapable of living. Such a devotee is regarded by God as His soul, for in him He too finds His life. That God is the soul of all is a metaphysical truth, while that the true lover of God is the very soul of God is a truth of love.

There is a great speciality in the worship of the Highest Deity. The simplest offerings, like a leaf, a flower, a fruit or even a little water, if offered with a love, such that life itself becomes unbearable to the devotee without this act of worship and the offering itself is treated as an end in itself, God accepts and enjoys immensely as they are brought to Him with love by the devotee who is sanctified by such love. In other words, the material part of the offering is valued as beyond price provided it is backed by intense love for its own sake. The point of value in the worship is the inward yearning of the heart. The highest Divinity is to be worshipped in the heart and soul and the outer acts and gifts have only a derivative value. Religion is spiritual in proportion to the conception of the Deity.

Bhakti is upāsana filled with prīti, it is meditation saturated with love. This element of love is to be acquired through an understanding of the nature of the object of meditation. This understanding is about the supreme majesty of God as characterized by infinite exalted attributes and as free from every shadow of imperfection. To Him belong all finite existences as forms of His own splendour.

In the interpretation of the last verse of the chapter (11) Rāmānuja argues that a Bhakta must be naturally free from hatred. Hatred proceeds from the experience or fear of injury at the hands of other creatures. For a true devotee the only injury would be alienation from the Lord and that injury no other being could inflict. Only lack of devotion and the consequent withholding of grace on God’s part, could bring about this calamity. Further, the other evils that overtake a devotee are explained by him as due to his own former misdeeds. He has no one else to blame. Thirdly the other beings are merely tools in the hands of God who executes His inexorable justice and they are not to be blamed as if they were independent agents. Thus there is no rational ground for hatred and hence a true Bhakta is free from hatred.

In this exposition of Tyāga and Sannyāsa, a fundamental principle gets formulated. The two concepts no doubt mean the same thing, but that meaning is not the discarding of any action. A refusal to act may be due to either delusion or the fear of the hardships of the pathway of works. Real renunciation does not involve the negation of activity. It is full involvement or commitment to fullness of activity with the total eradication of the egocentric attitude as expressed in the arrogant sense of doership, the attachment to action on personal grounds, and the expectation of personal rewards. Renunciation belongs to the inner world of consciousness behind action and does not signify the outer non-performance of action. It is freedom from self and not freedom from action. The person who has accomplished this highest type of renunciation is established in the true understanding of reality and hence is neutral in relation to actions bringing about personal rewards and personal sufferings. He transcends all self-centred valuations of actions. There is no possibility of a living being discarding all actions. In reality renunciation is only this three-fold renunciation in spirit as explained and not the non-engagement in every mode of activity.

In this verse Bhakti of this nature is inculcated.
“May thy mind dwell on Me. May it be filled with absolute love towards Me and dwell on Me with that love. May that loving contemplation issue in complete service to Me—with perfect love. May that loving contemplation make thee surrender thyself to Me with perfect love.”

Rāmānuja explains the precise nature of the delusion, the enlightenment, the doubt, and the particular direction Śrī Kṛṣṇa has given Arjuna in relation to his immediate course of action.
The delusion is three-fold:
(a) The identification of the self with the body;
(b) The failure to recognize that the whole universe consisting of finite spirits and matter is con-stituting the body of the Supreme Spirit and has It as its soul;
(c) That Karma, which in reality is instrumental to realize God when performed in the spirit of worship, will bring about the bondage of spirit.
The enlightenment correspondingly consists of these truths:
(a) The self transcends the body and is of the nature of knowledge. It is subservient to and under the control of the Supreme Spirit.
(b) The Supreme Person is possessed of infinite auspicious attributes and transcends every type of imperfection. He sports through the creation, maintenance and dissolution of the entire cosmos.
(c) This supreme person, identified with Śrī Kṛṣṇa, is attainable only through supreme Bhakti, which is facilitated by the performance of one’s duties in a spirit of worship; which course of life in its turn is founded on the right understanding of the Supreme Reality and the finite reals.